"Very useful. And I can forgive a man for making a useful thing as long as he does not admire it."
"That's New Humour, isn't it? And you're a New Humourist?" said Walker, satirically. "Why, it's a contradiction in itself! The very essence of a joke is, that it should be old. Where would you find anything funnier than the riddle, 'When is a door not a door?' and, 'Why does a miller wear a white hat?' Ah! it won't last—we're bound to go back to the 'Old Humour'—there's nothing like it—what is that noise?"
"A dispute has arisen in the ladies' cloak-room about a shawl. It's frightfully thrilling!" said Hilda Wangel.
"They seem to be going on anyhow. It's nothing," said Walker.
It appears that Charley's Aunt had accused Princess Salomé of taking her shawl. The Princess had indignantly thrown it at her, and was making rather rude personal remarks about it.
"I don't want your shawl. Your shawl is hideous. It is covered with dust. It is a tartan shawl. It is like the shawl worn in melodrama by the injured heroine who is about to throw herself over the bridge by moonlight. It is the shawl of a betrayed heroine in melodrama. There never was anything so hideous as your shawl!"
"Impertinence! To dare to speak to me like this! I'm the success of the season, and you were forbidden the country," said Charley's Aunt, furiously.
The second Mrs. Tanqueray here chimed in, giving her opinion, which did not add to the harmony of the gathering, and a secondary quarrel was going on, because Captain Coddington had said that the scent Comtesse Zicka used "was not quite up to date," and the latter was offended. In fact, there was a regular row all round. Nora banged her tambourine, and Walker playfully pretended to hide his head behind Lady Windermere's fan.
At last, however, we managed to calm the indignant ladies, and the party began to break up.
"The fact is," I said, "Society is getting a great deal too mixed. Now, I like to go away from an afternoon party feeling a purer and better man, my eyes filled with tears of honest English sentiment——"